From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2011-01-12T03:17:01+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:34375] Re: [Ruby 1.9-Feature#4264][Open] General type coercion protocol for Ruby

On Jan 11, 2011, at 11:14 AM, Charles Oliver Nutter wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 10:27 AM, Jim Weirich <jim.weirich@gmail.com> wrote:
>> (1a) Do we need a general solution for the to_a/to_s situation too?
> 
> Maybe? The big problem with to_ary/to_str versus to_a/to_s is that
> there's no clear understanding of the differences.

> I guess I see the difference being that to_ary/to_str are like
> slightly softer type-casting operations and to_a/to_s are hard,
> unconditional conversions.

I understood it as to_a/to_s are for conversions.  They basically mean change this object into an Array or a Sring, however it makes sense to do that for the current object.

In contrast, to_ary/to_str are for objects that essentially are enhanced versions of Array or String.  They mean, it's OK to pretend this object is an Array or a String.

Perhaps I'm wrong though.

James Edward Gray II